To the Idiots Who Make Us Look So Good

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, May 20, 1998

HERE'S TO the dumb.

There should be a National Dumb Day, honoring the chowderheads and clue-lorn who make it possible for the rest of us (I did make the cut, didn't I?) to achieve that smugness we humbly refer to as self-esteem.

Dumb advertising slogans, let's start there. I'm on a crusade to stamp 'em out, and how dumb is that? Why not try to stop the rain by whining about it?

Your tax dollars financed an ad campaign for BART and this new slogan (spotted by Fred Safier): "BART: All sorts of people going all sorts of places."

That should drum up some business. The slogan is pure poetry and should alleviate the problem of "people" mistaking BART cars for poodle-grooming salons.

Look closely at the ETD sign and you'll notice the trademark symbol, which is like putting an ID collar on a dead dog, in case he runs away.

My mini-mart-slogan vote goes to AM- PM: "Too much good stuff."

Which is why I stopped shopping there.

Frank Sinatra, dumb? You be the judge.

He always stayed at the Fairmont, and one day he asked the doorman, "What's the biggest tip you ever got?"

"A hundred bucks," the doorman said.

So Sinatra gave the man $200.

The doorman refrained from telling Frank who had given him the $100 tip: Frank Sinatra. This was an early prototype of the pyramid scheme.

But at least Frank knew where it rains (how's this for a dumb transition paragraph?).

Robert Dalziel hates it when the weather person on TV or the radio reports, "It's raining outside."

And Wes Haley is puzzled when he checks his suitcase at the airport and is asked, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?"

It was probably dumb of the city to buy all those new Breda screechcars made in Italy.

Terrence Meagher reports that many Stukas -- German World War II shrieking dive-bombers -- were built in Italy by . . . Breda.

And how about that Latrell Sprewell? He's not dumb, but the rest of us are.

Sprewell choked his basketball coach and was suspended and now might sue for violation of his civil rights.

The rest of us must be dumb, because every time Sprewell's attorney talks about how Spree got screwed, he first says, "Not to condone the altercation, but . . ."

Because he thinks that we think that maybe he condones . . .

Out in Lafayette, Pete Sevier is admiring a red Ferrari parked on Mt. Diablo Blvd. The Ferrari begins to slowly move. And nobody's in it. Is this a James Bond remote-controlled car?

Sevier springs into action, grabs the front bumper and stops the Ferrari just before it clanks into a parked Bronco (man, O.J. would have been livid!).

The heroic deed sets off the car alarm, and out runs a guy who owns one of the most sophisticated pieces of machinery in the history of man and doesn't know how to use a parking brake.

Crime file: In Sacramento, a man's Chevy Blazer is stolen. His cell phone is in the car. He reports the theft, then calls the cell phone company and they inform him that the phone was used, post-theft. They give him the number that was called from the stolen phone, and he passes the info to the Sheriff's Dept.

Someone at the Sheriff's Dept. phones the number, gets an answering machine, and leaves a message: Please call the sheriff's department.

So far, no return call.

Where have you gone, Dan Quayle, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo-woo-woo.